Gas turbine engines have been widely utilized as prime movers in stationary power generation plants. However, improvements in combustion efficiency, which would be especially advantageous in order to reduce emissions, would be desirable. In various attempts to achieve such improvements, many different methods and structures have been tried, either experimentally or commercially. Some of such attempts have included the use of recirculation zones to provide a continuous ignition source by mixing hot combustion products with the incoming fuel and air mixture. Structural devices such as swirl vanes, bluff bodies, and rearward facing steps have commonly been employed to establish recirculation zones for flame stability. The challenge, however, has been in fuel introduction methodology, and the structure of a flame stabilizer that ensures performance (including acceptable emissions and acoustic stability) while reducing capital and operating costs.
Flame stabilization criteria are even more important when operating at trans-sonic or supersonic inlet conditions. It would be especially desirable for burners operating under such conditions to have flame stabilizers that would be highly resistant to external flow field dynamics and/or perturbations.
Consequently, it would be desirable to provide a combustor for a gas turbine engine, specifically including combustion chamber structure that enables the engine to maintain high combustion efficiency while reducing the emission of undesirable products of combustion such as (a) nitrogen oxides, (b) partially oxidized hydrocarbons, and (c) carbon monoxide.
Moreover, it is beneficial in such devices that efficient and effective combustor cooling be achieved. Such a design approach increases combustor operating life (and thus achieves overall reduction in life cycle costs, while maximizing combustion efficiency.
Depending upon the specific operating needs of a particular implementation, certain subsets of (or even all) of the foregoing can be implemented using various combinations of exemplary embodiments, or variations of certain aspects of such exemplary embodiments.